"Brendon M. Troy" wrote:

"Doug Huffman" wrote:

'An inexperienced driver with a vehicle to big to handle.' Another excuse
mitigating the culpability of motorists. Why aren't we so dismissive of
improperly handled legal firearms? Driving is a heavily abused privilege
while firearms are seldom abused and the RIGHT to them is guaranteed by the
2A.

....
it's a sad case of an
inexperienced driver in a vehicle she probably shouldn't have been
driving yet.

Yet? How 'bout ever? Why should a road vehicle that seats 5 weigh
three times as much as an airplane that seats 6?

"SUV" usually means "passenger car that abuses a loophole in order to
avoid meeting minimum passenger car crash safety and fuel efficiency
standards". There is no reason _anybody_ should be driving one. They
are supposed to be illegal to produce!

I don't know how you turned that into a right-to-bear-arms
post, but you managed to. Since you did, I'll use your analogy and say
this: when firearms are accidentally discharged, we don't charge the
"shooter" with Murder-1.

An accidental shooting death resulting from negligence is likely to
get a firearms user convicted of involuntary manslaughter, though,
while a driver in a directly comparable situation will most likely
only be ticketed for a traffic infraction (or not face any legal
responsibility at all).

Take the same players and the same level of negligence that
accompanies most auto fatalities, change only the type of killing
machine in question, and the killer will face consequences. Not so
for the car driver. Some drivers have left their victims dead, have
later been apprehended, and still have not been charged in the deaths.

Here's a table containing reported car-bike collisions in Austin, TX,
population ~600K:
http://bicycleaustin.info/justice/table.html
It would be illuminating if folks in other cities were to compile this
sort of information the way Michael Bluejay has. I am not certain how
complete or up-to-date this table is, but it clearly shows the
prevailing pattern of motorists escaping legal responsibility for
their misdeeds.

You didn't make a suggestion for how this case
should be handled without 'mitigating the culpability' of this motorist,
and I'm honestly (not combatively) curious as to what you would suggest.

I for one believe that drivers involved in fatal accidents with
non-motorists (and I realize that the victim in this case is not dead
yet) should forfeit their driver's licenses permanently, on a
no-fault, no-questions-asked basis. This measure would not only do no
harm to the errant driver (perhaps even protecting him from later
injury), but would tend to promote due care from drivers in the
presence of non-motorists. I believe we'd see many fewer cars
bullying through crowded crosswalks or blasting by cyclists in the
same narrow lane, such as I have witnessed many times lately.

In this particular case, assuming the victim survives, I believe an
appropriate criminal charge would be Battery.

Chalo Colina